Nobel Laureate John Jumper Leaves DeepMind for Anthropic
Original: Nobel laureate John Jumper is leaving DeepMind for rival Anthropic
Why This Matters
Illustrates competitive talent recruitment in AI sector as leading researchers move between major AI labs amid commercialization pressures.
John Jumper, 2024 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry for AlphaFold work, announced Friday he is departing Google DeepMind after nearly 9 years to join rival Anthropic, marking another high-profile departure from DeepMind.
John Jumper announced his departure from Google DeepMind on Friday via a post on X, stating he will be joining Anthropic after spending nearly 9 years at the AI research division. Jumper, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis for their work on AlphaFold—an AI model that predicts 3D protein structures from genetic sequences—praised his time at DeepMind. In his announcement, Jumper noted that Hassabis "took a real chance letting me lead the AlphaFold team just six months after finishing my PhD," and credited the entire team for teaching him about conducting great science. According to Bloomberg, Jumper was a key member of Google's team developing coding tools, which the company has had difficulty commercializing to businesses. This move follows another significant departure: Character AI co-founder Noam Shazeer also announced this week that he is leaving DeepMind, though Shazeer is joining OpenAI rather than Anthropic.